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Oscar Buzz Builds For Rebecca Hall In ‘Christine’

20th Century Fox

And the year of “We’re gonna show everyone this time that video game movies can be great… no, Wait, never mind, they’re still terrible!” comes to an end on Dec. 21 with 20th Century Fox’s Assassin’s Creed. The weird irony of the year in video game movies is that we got the top two video game movies of all time in terms of global box office, but the would-be sub-genre is still as disdained as ever.

Ratchet and Clank was a non-entity, earning $8.8 million for Focus Features. Sony’s animated The Angry Birds Movie was actually a genuine hit, becoming the second video game movie to top $100m in North America and earning $347m on a $73m budget. But it was sadly about as “eh” as expected.

And then Warcraft bombed in America ($47 million), did brisk-but-brief business in China ($220m off a $156m five-day opening) and ended up with $433m globally on a $160m budget. We may get another one, but it will probably be a “start-from-scratch” offering explicitly aimed at China.

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And now we have Assassin’s Creed. The Regency Enterprises/Ubisoft Entertainment/DMC Film/etc. production dropped its second theatrical trailer this morning, presumably to coincide with Paramount/Viacom Inc.'s theatrical release of Jack Reacher: Never Go Back and Fox's Keeping Up with the Joneses. As I’ve said a few times over the last year, I’m a little stunned that the major studios haven’t managed to release an outright acclaimed video game movie at least once by virtue of statistical probability.

They’ve been trying for 23 years, with basically no outright successes aside from a few “Hey, that wasn’t too bad!” offerings like Mortal Kombat or whichever Tomb Raider or Resident Evil installment you happen to enjoy. I spoke last week about the Blade franchise, and that really should be the template for this stuff. Just make a star-driven/concept-driven action movie that looks good and that people might want to see, and hope that they show up regardless of the source material.

To be fair, Walt Disney more-or-less did that with Prince of Persia, and if the (shockingly mediocre) film hadn’t cost $200 million to produce it would have been a hit at $336m worldwide. And I might argue that Assassin’s Creed is going through the same idea, except Michael Fassbender isn’t a star and this thing allegedly cost around $200m to produce. Or maybe $130m, depending on who you ask.

Truth be told, I hope the rebuttal figure of $130 million is true, because that at least gives this thing a fighting chance. As you know, 20th Century Fox fantasies tend to be outright magic at the overseas box office, which is why we have two Percy Jackson movies, a third Narnia film which no one remembers that still topped $400 million worldwide and Tim Burton’s Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children racing over the $200m mark worldwide.

My misgivings about the notion of chasing video games as source material despite no true outright A-level successes aside, I do want one of these things to click. I’ve whined at length about the lack of “new to cinema” franchises as Hollywood continues to revive, reboot and recycle existing former glories. Video game movies are the best shot we’ve got at getting some “new to cinema” franchises in the next few years.

Heck, Warcraft and Assassin’s Creed were basically the only “new to cinema” live-action franchises adaptations we got this year. Warcraft is a relative bust, so Assassin’s Creed carries the fate of us all, so to speak.

As far as the preview, this looks fine. The money is on the screen, the stunt work looks polished and it has a great cast (Fassbender, Marion Cotillard, Brendan Gleeson, Jeremy Irons, Ariane Labed and Michael K. Williams). Justin Kurzel isn’t the first guy you’d think of for a video game-based action movie, and I sincerely hope that the marketing offers us a “from the director of Macbeth… comes Assassin’s Creed” blurb.

Sure, it will be amusing watching "present tense" Fassbender basically mime out his action stunts while the past-tense protagonist engages in adventure and murder. I'm wondering if it wouldn't have been easier just to tell a "set in the era of the Spanish inquisition" story without all of the future-y mumbo jumbo. Of course, that might have made a sequel challenging, but one step at a time. The question is whether the 140-minute, PG-13 film can survive the onslaught that will be Rogue One, Passengers and Sing during the Christmas season.